Funny buggers

OVER some things, the French do not know whether to laugh or cry. Certainly the latest plot, as revealed bit by bit in the press, had all the makings of farce. An anti-terrorist unit, set up at the president's Elysée Palace by the late François Mitterrand, seemed to have spent many more hours keeping the president's sexual peccadillos from prying eyes and ears than in tracing bombers. With Mitterrand's full knowledge and approval, if not at his actual behest, the unit illegally tapped the telephones of some 200 worthy citizens, including judges, politicians, lawyers, journalists, even a leading actress, Carole Bouquet. And now today's politicians are bickering over whether details of “this sorry tale” (as Lionel Jospin, Mitterrand's successor as Socialist leader, has called it) should themselves be divulged, or stay hidden behind the wall of secret défense for the supposed sake of national security.